[J-Fashion] Style Inspiration From Our Photo Contest Winner!

Last month, we held our first J-Fashion Photo Contest. We were so delighted to receive entries that proudly communicated every single contestant's passion for Japanese fashion! As difficult as it was to choose a winner from among such wonderful candidates, we were especially intrigued by Yenny's outfit. She is from Colombia and absolutely loves Harajuku style!

Simply from seeing Yenny’s contest entry, we had a hunch that she would provide very fascinating and meaningful answers to our questions about her personal style, as well as her love of Japanese fashion. In the interview that follows below, she more than proved us right—in fact, we were downright humbled by her thoughtful and knowledgeable comments.

—What first sparked your interest in Japanese fashion? Do you often wear Harajuku style?

Y: Since many years ago I have been caught by Japanese fashion because of their originality and creativity. I've always been impressed and fascinated with the different styles you can find. The first time I knew about Harajuku, I just was specially captivated by gothic lolita, punk lolita and visual kei fashion not only because of the outfit but their hairstyle and makeup, it was like I was watching people from another world, I felt identified with those styles.

I usually wear Harajuku style in special events but I try to take with me some of my Harajuku clothing and accessories every day :), they are part of me.

—What do you like about Harajuku style in general and Mameshi Pamyu Pamyu in particular?

Y: Harajuku is the best way to express yourself by mixing different styles of fashion in many ways that defines your own style; it taught me that fashion is to enjoy and to have fun.

Harajuku also makes you free to wear what you like the most; all colors, accessories and clothing mixed even with strange shapes fits into the Harajuku style :).

Mameshi-Pamyu-Pamyu is a very lovely and a "Kawaii" style that makes me feel comfortable and cute. The combination of Kyary and mameshiba are the expression of cuteness, I love it.

—What was your thought process behind pairing the specific items seen in your submitted photo?

Y: I chose to wear my Mameshi Pamyu Pamyu as a relaxing cute style with simple accessories that combine well all together, like the ice cream earrings and the bulb necklace.

I made sure to follow the same line of colors like gray, blue, and yellow, that's why I selected my cosmo tights, a hairstyle with a blue/gray wig with a skeleton hairclip and purple circle lens.

—More generally speaking, how do you put together your outfits when wearing Harajuku style?

Y: Depending of the Harajuku style, I combine my clothes with elements and accessories that gives me the look I want following the same line of colors. I generally use a punk style so most of my clothes are based on dark colors but in the end as long as I feel comfortable and happy with my style then I can wear it.

—Do you look to any sources of style inspiration like Japanese fashion magazines, bloggers, your own friends, or celebrities?

Y: I see many styles by Japanese fashion web pages like japanesestreets and tokyofashion, I also know about awesome bloggers like Alexa Poletti, Harajuku fashion icons like Kyary and Haruka Kurebayashi, models of Harajuku kawaii culture like U Kimura... but I have to say that my major inspiration is the gothic & lolita model Akira; I really love the way she makes her own style taking the punk/lolita and boy style fashion to other level.

—Please share anything else you would like to tell us about yourself.

Y: Although I don't live in Japan I've been always fascinated about many things that come from that beautiful country; culture, fashion, music, cosplay, videogames, anime and manga always makes me take part of the Japanese world with me, a world that I love and is part of my life even when I'm more than 14.000 kms away. Thanks to that, I enjoy cosplay, listening to Jrock and Jpop, reading manga and watching my favorite anime series like One Piece, learning Japanese, using Harajuku style and applying in my life part of Japanese culture values like discipline and perseverance; I feel like Japanese people inspire me and makes me see life in a very special and unique way.

I want to give thanks to my dear friend Leslye who helped me with the photos and makeup, this wouldn't have been possible without her help :), and of course thanks a lot to TOM for this opportunity and let me being part of the otaku world through the Tokyo Otaku Mode website with all those awesome products, the news and the articles that also let everybody learn a lot about what we like and enjoy the most: The Otaku Life.
You can check more photos of my friend on these profiles: Facebook | 500px

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We here at TOM wish to offer our heartfelt thanks to Yenny, too! It has been an honor to correspond with her and learn more about her style choices. After seeing the additional photos she shared with us, we were deeply impressed by the variety of looks she is able to inhabit with confident ease. You can really tell how much care she took to create each individual outfit, and how much fun she must have while doing so!

We hope that our interview with her also helps show that Japanese fashion can become accessible to anyone who finds it intriguing. Even if it seems like a completely separate world at first, you too can begin entering that fascinating world step by step. No matter how far away you live from Japan, Japanese fashion (in all its beautiful variety) could actually be the perfect way for you to express yourself! And everyone here at TOM wants to do all that we can to help!

In the spirit of spreading greater understanding of Japanese culture throughout the world, Yenny is also involved in an organization called Corporacion Cultural Ryuhikai, which has a mission of promoting cultural exchange between Colombia and Japan. You can visit their official websites to view Spanish-language news and other information! http://www.rhk.com.co/ | http://ryuhikai.com/

Thank you again to Yenny for graciously taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing us with a fantastic album of Harajuku style inspiration!

PS: We've recently added a lot of new Mameshi Pamyu Pamyu fashion. If you appreciate Yenny's sense of style as much as we do, please come take a look! As always, thank you very much for reading, and see you again soon!